A Cambridge-led outreach project is connecting over 2,200 pupils with the excitement of ESA’s Gaia mission through a Q&A session that will take place tomorrow with the discussion streamed live to schools throughout Europe.

A space mission to create the largest, most-accurate, map of the Milky Way in three dimensions has been launched today. Astronomers say the data gathered by the satellite will “revolutionise” our understanding of the galaxy and the universe beyond.

Astronomers have discovered enormous smooth shapes that look like vapour trails in a gigantic galaxy cluster. These ‘arms’ span half a million light years and provide researchers with clues to a billion years of collisions within the “giant cosmic train wreck” of the Coma cluster.

A team of astronomers at the University of Cambridge is taking the next big step in a European-wide programme which will lead to the creation of the first three-dimensional map of more than a billion stars.